WASHINGTON – John Moores is in the midst of a complicated divorce, but that apparently will not cause the club owner to split up with the Padres.

In recent comments to MLB.com, Moores, the majority owner of the Padres since late 1994, spoke optimistically about his future role with the club, which he bought at the urging of his wife, Becky.

“I'd never say never about anything, but I don't think I'll be out of the picture next year,” Moores told Major League Baseball's Web site. “I don't want to dance too much around it, because I have a very difficult personal situation and that drives a lot of my life, but I anticipate being part of the Padres next year and into the foreseeable future.”

Under Moores, the Padres have won four division titles and a National League pennant, but the team is last in the NL West with a 59-95 record, well short of in-house projections by the front office. Moores himself painted a rosy picture for the Padres in February.

“I'm so happy with where we are,” he told the Union-Tribune, citing achievements such as four consecutive winning seasons starting in 2004, the construction of Petco Park and the “process-driven” front office of CEO Sandy Alderson.

“It just doesn't get any better,” he said in February. “Everything we said we'd change, we've done.”

At that time, Moores said he expected formidable opposition from the NL West but expected the Padres to play “meaningful games in September.”

After not responding to several interview requests from the Union-Tribune this summer about the Padres' performance, he again talked of meaningful games in comments to MLB.com.

“The goal has always been to play meaningful games in September,” Moores said. “We clearly have not met that target this year, but I want to do it again next year. That's the priority. Last year, we got within an out of postseason play. And I thought potentially we had at least as good a team coming back. Everybody thought the West was going to be whole lot stronger than it has been. I don't really understand why it hasn't. We're going to try and take it apart and figure it all out.”

Peavy for Tuesday

Pitcher Jake Peavy probably will start Tuesday's game in Dodger Stadium and might also start the season finale against the Pirates, manager Bud Black said. Peavy missed last night's start to be with his wife, Katie, for the birth of their third child, a boy.

Notable

Black said he is hopeful that shortstop Luis Rodriguez will return to the starting lineup tonight or tomorrow. He put down a sacrifice bunt last night as a pinch hitter. Rodriguez left Tuesday's game because of a strained right triceps.

Black and four Padres players went on a brisk, unguided tour of the White House yesterday. “It was like 10 minutes,” said outfielder Chip Ambres. Earlier this year, pitcher Greg Maddux said he got a personal tour from President Bush a few years ago. Maddux said Bush escorted him and his son, Chase, to the one-lane bowling alley in the basement of the White House.

According to General Manager Kevin Towers, the Red Sox recently attempted to hire Padres scout Chris Gwynn. But the Padres retained Gwynn after expanding his scouting responsibilities. “He's a good one,” Towers said. In this decade, the Red Sox have hired away several Padres talent evaluators, including former Towers aide Theo Epstein, who became Boston's GM; scout Craig Shipley, who heads Boston's international operations; scout Jason McLeod, who became Boston's scouting director and had a hugely successful first draft in 2005; and scout Mark Wasinger, who Peavy said got him to forgo a scholarship to Auburn and sign with the Padres.